Trump picks Boeing over Lockheed for major fighter jet contract
U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday awarded Boeing the contract to build the U.S. air force’s most sophisticated fighter jet yet, handing the company a much-needed win and boosting its shares.
The Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program will replace Lockheed Martin’s F-22 Raptor with a crewed aircraft built to enter combat alongside drones.
Trump, the 47th president, announced the new jet’s name, the F-47.
“We’ve given an order for a lot. We can’t tell you the price,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
Boeing shares rose five per cent after the U.S. company beat out Lockheed Martin for the deal. Lockheed’s shares fell nearly seven per cent.
“Our allies are calling constantly,” Trump added, saying foreign sales could be an option. “They want to buy them also.”
As Boeing pleads guilty to a criminal fraud conspiracy charge connected to two deadly crashes, The National breaks down what happened to the aviation giant’s reputation and whether its planes are any safer.
For Boeing, the win marks a reversal of fortune for a company that has struggled on both the commercial and defence sides of its business. It is a major boost for its St. Louis fighter jet production business.
The loss is another blow to Lockheed after it was eliminated from the competition to build the navy’s next-generation carrier-based stealth fighter, and amid growing discontent from the Pentagon over delays in upgrading its F-35 fighter jet.
In recent weeks, Trump met with Lockheed CEO Jim Taiclet to discuss the F-35, according to three sources.
The engineering and manufacturing development contract is worth more than $20 billion US. Boeing’s win means it will make the jet fighter and receive orders worth hundreds of billions of dollars over the contract’s multi-decade lifetime.
“We recognize the importance of designing, building and delivering a sixth-generation fighter capability for the United States air force,” Steve Parker, who leads Boeing’s defence business, said in a statement. “In preparation for this mission, we made the most significant investment in the history of our defence business.”
The plane’s design remains a closely held secret, but would likely include stealth, advanced sensors and cutting-edge engines.
“Compared to the F-22, the F-47 will cost less and be more adaptable to future threats — and we will have more of the F-47s in our inventory,” said chief of staff of the air force, Gen. David Allvin.
NGAD was conceived as a “family of systems” centred around a sixth-generation fighter to counter adversaries such as China and Russia.
Allvin said the F-47 will have significantly longer range, more advanced…
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